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I've been riding with my power meter for more than a month now and find it incredible hard to keep a somewhat steady output when doing longer intervals (threshold), even on my trainer.The average power for my intervals usually ends up within +/- 10% of what I planned, but when I checkout my data afterwards, my power curve is one giant sawtooth with serious time spent far above my intended power.

On the bike I try to pace myself with the 3s avg. power use 30s+lap avg. power to see a "trend" of how I am doing.

But how do you learn to ride economically to avoid the sawtooths in power output? Higher cadence? Mashing? Pedal-hold-pedal?

Could be due to a less than perfectly round pedaling action which applies a perfectly constant force throughout the entire pedal revolution. +-10% seems like a lot of variance, but it would be incredibly difficult to maintain, say, a 300 + watt interval within 5 watts. Somewhere in between seems acceptable.

Crank based power meter (Power2Max) with a Garmin head unit. Trainer is an Elite magnet based one. Intervals usually 2x20 or 1x40 done outside. I don't think that any of the gear is faulty and that the problem instead lies within my technique.

bricky21 wrote::idea: Could be due to a less than perfectly round pedaling action which applies a perfectly constant force throughout the entire pedal revolution. +-10% seems like a lot of variance, but it would be incredibly difficult to maintain, say, a 300 + watt interval within 5 watts. Somewhere in between seems acceptable.

I am far from the smoothest rider, but I dont think the spikes are due to my pedal stroke. I often ride at FTP on the flat, just to look down at the Garmin a moment later with 3s power spiking 50% above FTP.

How tight wattage ranges should you be able to keep within on a flat road for somewhat normal conditions (no traffic, little wind and no sudden hors categorie climbs)?

I thought about the possibility of my FTP being too low, as whenever I am fatigued after a long ride or applying force enough to ride within what is now Z5, I find it so much easier to keep a steady power. Doing 2x20 intervals at 95-100% of FTP shouldn't feel easy, right?

My power graphs also look spikey. I just go by 3-sec ave, power readout and also have "lap power" displayed. If you zoom in to a short interval it will look less spikey, but still seems a lot more variable than it feels while doing it.

Tinea Pedis wrote:Here is a shot of a 20 minute interval of mine (on my Lemond trainer) this week

if yours looks like this, I think you've nothing to worry about.

Thank you!

I did a 2x20 yesterday on the trainer after increasing my FTP about 10% and increased the sampling rate of my Garmin (which somehow got reset to a low value in an update) and now my files look much smoother again!